


Cracked Jewel

by polandspringz



Series: Value-nerable [2]
Category: gen:LOCK (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27273997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polandspringz/pseuds/polandspringz
Summary: A glimpse into Dr. Weller's memories of the moments after Chase was stolen from them.
Relationships: Julian Chase & Raquel Marin, Julian Chase & Rufus Weller, Raquel Marin & Rufus Weller
Series: Value-nerable [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991368
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Cracked Jewel

**Author's Note:**

> I unfortunately did not have anyone who could beta read this for me before publishing, so I read through it myself. I apologize for any mistakes, and please let me know if you see any! I recommend you read part 1 of this series before this story.

Dr. Weller turned away from the Behemoth in the distance, his hand reaching out towards Julian.

“Chase, you have to know that I-”

Hexagons dispersed in front of his eyes, and Chase was gone.

Rufus’s hand flexed once towards the fleeting hologram shapes that scattered as Chase warped away from him, and slowly, he let his arm fall to his side. _Karma,_ Chase had said, and he was right. No matter how much Rufus tried to reason with himself that Chase didn’t know the whole story, that he didn’t understand what was at stake, he knew that was all false.

He should have told Chase from the start- the _real, original_ Chase- that they were copying his brain. It was the ethical move, even though Chase had given up every part of himself to serve the Polity, he still had the right to know, to be allowed to make the decision about what they should have done when he was taken away. Whether they should’ve made copies in the first place, whether they should have destroyed the thing the moment the real Chase was taken.

Although- Rufus thought to himself as he dismissed a pager from the Colonel telling him to get inside to safety, _he was already on his way-_ that was probably the dilemma going through Chase’s head right now. _Their_ Chase’s head. Was he even Chase, or just a copy? Was he real? He was born of the original, but a different route from _that_ moment on, a different mote of possibility. Rufus knew that neither Chase nor his Nemesis would believe a word he said at this point, but the truth was that-

_He had always thought of them both as real. Neither one a copy. Both were extremely valuable lives. Two jewels full of equal promise, vivacity, that clung to life and the will to protect._

Rufus stared at his hands, balling them both into fists as he struggled to internalize his frustration, tightening his muscles as he watched the line of the tendon in his wrist emerge before it disappeared as he released all the tension, sighing as he tossed his head back and looked up at the dusty blue sky of the desert.

_But he was the one who had split them into two, created this divide._

The Colonel sent another screaming message for him to get inside the Anvil. Rufus meekly responded, swiping the notification away as he turned away from the sky, removed his glasses, and wiped his eyes.

He walked inside.

* * *

He still remembered that day clearly.

As he walked through the corridor of the Anvil, slowly making his way into the elevator that would bring him to the top floor, it was hard to separate his thoughts from the memory of when Chase had been lost to them forever.

Chase had saluted them, and then the channel went silent. They were all stuck staring at the video feed from a nearby security camera they had hacked into, watching as Chase’s Holon, _his mind,_ were wrenched and wrestled inside an aircraft. The emergency protocols had shut him off from the network, silencing him and leaving him merciless to their restraints, and giving them no chance of retrieval.

After Chase’s body disappeared behind the aircraft’s closed doors, Marin stormed away. ABLE was the only one who watched her go.

Rufus was still left staring in shock at the screen, only dimly aware of Marin’s boots pounding against the aluminum plating of the transport ship’s floor, fading away into the background like the arguments of his scientists behind him. Everyone was screaming about something, what could have been done, why the mission was rotten from the start, how they were set-up, but no one seemed to be looking to the obvious, _thinking_ of the obvious.

Until Rufus did.

He was ashamed and sickened by how easily the solution came to him. Even now, it filled him with a taste of bile in his throat as a dark part of his own mind whispered-

_You replaced him. You replaced him so quickly, like he didn’t even really matter. That’s why he’s become the monster he is today._

Rufus remembered how he turned around, and looking past his scientists fighting and ignoring Marin as she bowed her head against the wall of the ship and screamed in anger instead of crying, his eyes had zeroed in on the _copy._ It had been sitting there all day, just out of Chase’s view from the tank, but safely within the confines of the ship, within reach if anything _happened._

Rufus had not accounted for the reach of what that _anything_ would have been when he started the process of copying Chase’s mind. It was a backup from the start in case something within the system went wrong, a security measure so Chase’s mind wouldn’t be swallowed up or killed by the technology he had entrusted his life to. It was never meant to be a _replacement._

But, they had no other option.

Resolutely, Rufus had stood up and pushed aside the two scientists and marched across the room to the digital brain. Marin looked up and narrowed her eyes when she saw what he was standing over. Rufus opened his mouth to speak-

_“No,”_ Marin hissed out, “You are not putting a copy inside Chase’s head!”

Rufus hardened his face as he looked back at her for a moment, before taking a deep breath and facing the rest of the room.

_“Do it.”_

“Weller, you bastard!” Marin charged forward and grabbed the lapels of his coat, violently shoving the man back into the wall beside the Chase’s tank, “Will you not listen to orders?! I refuse to allow you to just sacrifice him like that!”

“Sacrifice?” Rufus reached a hand up and wrapped it around her wrist, prying it off of him before he shoved her back with the back of his arm, “You were the one who demanded we abandon him! You were the one who forced the ship to pull back!”

“I did what I had to in order to preserve the future of _your_ program! Your mind, Weller, it cannot be lost!”

“We cannot lose Chase either!”  
  


“Then we will go find him!”

“You know as well as I do we are never getting him back now! We have no idea what they’ll do to his mind in that state! They’ve never handled the technology before, they might kill him before they even piece together what he even is!”

“And in the event that they don’t, we will rescue him before the war is done! I refuse to have you toss aside one of my Vanguard like-”

“Toss aside? Vanguard?” Rufus threw an accusatory finger into Marin’s face as he shouted down at her, “Raquel, what do you think you’re talking about? Chase isn’t the Vanguard anymore, he’s a Holon pilot! He hasn’t been yours since you entrust him into my hands, and so I am making the call! I know as well as you do that even if we found out where they’re taking Chase, there is no way you would be able to retrieve him safely without my assistance, and based on what you’ve just done, we both know that you would never allow that to _happen!”_

Silence stretched across the lab of the ship. Rufus panted as he glanced down at Marin, who was frozen but her face rippled with cold, boiling anger as she glared up at him with disappointment.

One of the scientists still near the console spoke up nervously, “Even though Chase isn’t running on the Holon right now, based on the time since he was uploaded and c-copied,” they stumbled over the sensitive subject, "into the electronic brain, we only have a few minutes before we lose the ability to retrieve him from that brain too.”

Marin just shut her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, “Weller, you have made yourself known as one of the most important minds in this fight. If we lose you, we lose the war. I cannot have them taking you, because as _Chase himself_ just said, gen:LOCK needs to live on. The call I made today, I’m sure he understood my decision.”

Rufus continued to stare resolutely down at her, _“Then understand my decision too._ Let me help gen:LOCK live on.”

She sighed, and stepped aside. Rufus glided past.

“I have no idea if that copy will even work, but we’ve got nothing else to run it on except his body. Let’s hurry.”

In the present, Rufus just barely made it inside the Anvil top story, stepping into through the doors just as Marin requested for the transmission to be brought up onto her screen. Nemesis illuminated the window of the command center, and Rufus hurried to reach him.

The black Holon twitched and its muscles moved in staggering, glitching, and overall rough motions as it marched on towards them. The mangled, warbled voice of the Chase they had once known chilled Rufus even as he stepped forward, trying to plead with him to return to their side.

Rufus remembered the hushed agreements and uncertainty of what they would say as Caliban worked to download the copy into Chase’s body. They were running out of time, and were not even sure if Chase would awaken, but still, Rufus insisted they all gather around to be there when he woke.

“He won’t remember us abandoning him, Doctor-” one scientist started to say, but Rufus raised a hand and motioned over his shoulder for them to stand back.

“I know, I know. But help absolve an old man’s conscience of guilt just a bit, will you?”

They all turned back to the tank. The sounds coming from Caliban signified to Rufus’ ears that the download was complete, and it would only be a few more moments until-

_Chase would open his eyes slowly to a crowd of familiar faces- of family- standing around him. The scientists were all awestruck, Marin looked up at him with a pained, mournful expression as ABLE remained silent. Dr. Weller watched as Chase began to raise his head, and Rufus reached up after him-_

Nemesis began to move even more erratically, fighting with something they couldn’t see or hear seemingly-

But then, _Chase_ slammed into the side of Nemesis, and the transmission was interrupted.

“Chase!”

Rufus ran back towards the lab, a familiar, dreadful feeling welling up within him as hurried through the halls.

_Chase’s eyes opened inside the tank, just as Rufus’ hand touched the surface of the glass._

_He was back._

_But **he** was gone._

**Author's Note:**

> Dr. Weller is my favorite character in gen:LOCK, but writing about him and Marin and their different relationship with the gen:LOCK team is probably my favorite thing to do. While Yaz and Weller have an obvious father/daughter dynamic, I feel like there is potential in how Marin views Chase for a similar surrogate family/mentor figure relationship. I know I may have written Weller and Marin a bit intense here, but compared to previous stories where I've written their arguments as witty banter, I thought it would be more realistic to have them actually losing their professionalism in a moment like when Chase was taken.


End file.
